there was an article in the NY TIMES sunday magazine about a month ago, about a family that specialized in training for, and wining spelling bees.
the kids focus in on words with silent letters or other spelling anomalies (the kid in the article came in 3rd as i recall, failing on gneiss-- which made me smile, because it was i word i knew at her age (12 or so!) having learned that
the bronx is gneiss,
and manhattan is schists! (and that last one often was mis-spoken!)
the limestone layers, that make up milo's cave in the south, are almost completely eroded away up here.. only small outcropping remain.. (marble hill is one small limestone landmark)

they collect list of words used in other spelling bees, and generally go about learning how to spell obscure words like gnotobotic, to win. many times, they do not know the meaning of the words, just how to spell them. it seemed very sad, and very unlike the joy we take in words.


my other obsession